If 30 is the new 20, I think I'm 45.

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The Balancing Act

Since I decided to try to post at least once per day, naturally I have gotten completely distracted by other things. I have never been one to spend a great deal of time online, especially since my Blackberry allows me to check my Facebook from my phone. But starting this blog made me curious about other dad blogs, which led me to other blogs and websites in general. This coupled with a recent decision to integrate more technology into my classroom and a newfound obsession with Twitter has led to me spending an unhealthy amount of time cruising the net trying to connect with other educators and trying to find Web 2.o tools that can impact my instruction in a meaningful way.

Let me interject here that I am a full-throttle type of person, meaning when I decide to start something new I tend to jump in with both feet and take it to an extreme. The downside to this personality trait is that I also tend to crash HARD. If plans don’t work out in the way that I imagined they would or if too many roadblocks get in my way I lose hope and steam and often abandon the effort altogether.

This trait also has other repercussions, most notably that it drives my wife crazy because my tunnel vision detracts from my involvement in the lives of my family. I will spend every spare moment engaged in whatever project I am working on and it will take a force of nature (or my wife’s exasperated scolding) to snap me out of it.

I want to be awesome at all things that I do. I think that working hard to do the best that you can do is an important lesson to instill in our children. It is important for my kids to see that I am a lifelong learner and that I am always striving to improve. It is important to my marriage that I feel successful in my professional life so that I am happier overall and am bringing positivity and internal peace to the table. But how can I manage my time so that neither my personal nor professional life suffer for the other? To be the best I can be at work I have to dedicate personal time to improving my teaching practices and connecting with other professionals. To be the best husband and father I need to be able to dedicate my time at home to my family. And I can’t keep staying up until the wee hours of the morn to try to squeeze both in because then I am too tired to function successfully in both areas.

The solution isn’t as simple as “just prioritize” because both sides feed each other. I can’t put off all of my professional planning until summer break because I must be consistently evaluating and improving or face having wasted an entire school year. And I can’t just settle on mediocrity in both areas because that would make me miserable and would set a terrible example for my children.

If I had more time in my day or only had to work 4 days a week I would be more able to fit everything in (or maybe not), but as both are highly unlikely I don’t know how to find the balance. So, what’s the answer? Is there a solution? Are my personal standards naïve? Or am I just missing something that will make everything fall into place?

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One response to “The Balancing Act”

Lately I’ve been wondering the samething. I’m lucky enough to have a job where I have alot of down time and can have time to go through and read blogs or write blogs if I need to. Personally, it is kind of an escape since 75% of my job is full of stress when I am working.

But in my personal life, again my job helps in me blogging since I have some days off during the week and I can blog and connect with other dad and parents during the week. At the same time I’ve communicated with my wife that this is important to me. I’ve even asked her to come on and blog a few times with no avail but I think I’ve reeled her in on the next topic that I asked her to write about. She would say the same thing about me when I do something… I go all in. Whether its a new hobby or my career or even being a dad.